In literacy we are learning about Italy and by the end of the half term we will create our own information brochure. Today, we started to research about Italy and used the iPads to find information. We also used some videos and made notes on whiteboards.

We have loved dressing up as our favourite characters from lots of different stories! Our book for today has been ‘The day the crayons quit’ and we have done a range of activities linking to the story. For example writing a letter to a crayon of out choice to say sorry and creating our own version of the last page of the story using lots of colours.

We have started our new topic ‘Never Eat Shredded Wheat’ and have already found out what a compass is and how it helps us find north, east, south and west. We had a go at using a compass to find which way north was in the classroom.

We have been continuing our learning about Diwali and have learnt about rangoli patterns and how they are significant in the Hindu religion. We have used oil pastels to colour in our own rangoli patterns.

We have been writing instructions in literacy to explain how to make a jam sandwich. We have used bossy verbs and time words to tell people what they should do. We followed our instructions to make a jam sandwich.

We have been learning about Remembrance Day and why it is so important. We have also learnt why a poppy is an important symbol and have used collage to decorate our own poppies. They all look lovely on our class display!

We have made our own firework pictures using black paper, oil pastels and chalk. We watched a real firework display and talk about the patterns and shapes that can be made. We then used oil pastels and chalk to make our own.

We have been testing materials to see which ones are waterproof to make Percy the park keeper a new umbrella. We made predictions as a class to guess which material might be best and today we conducted our experiment. We found that the plastic was the most waterproof and didn’t absorb any water.

This morning we shared with parents and the rest of the school what we have been learning in our topic ‘Whatever the Weather’. We used the values of teamwork and perseverance to perform a quality assembly. Thank you to all parents and family members who came to watch!

In literacy we are learning about glossaries and what they are for. We looked at lots of non-fiction books to identify where a glossary can be found and what they help us to find out. We had a go at reading some meanings for words in the glossary.

During child initiated play in the afternoons the children have been enjoying using different areas of the classroom to apply what they have learnt in lessons. Here, children are using money to role play shops and others are using the weather station role play area.

We have used a fantastic website where the children can create their own virtual weather report by clicking on each section and selecting different types of weather and temperatures. The weather report is then read to the children by a cartoon weather reporter.

We have been learning about what weather forecasts are and how we can find them using a range of devices at home. We watched some real weather reports and talked about what we could see then we worked in groups to plan and perform our own to the class.

In maths we have been learning about the value of coins and used this to solve a problem. We had to find as many different ways to make 10p using the amounts of 1p, 2p and 5p. We used a number line to help us add up the totals.

In topic we are learning about weather and seasons. We went outside and made observations using our senses to create a weather diary for the afternoon – we also compared the weather to how it had changed throughout the day.

Reception Class had a fantastic trip to The Box Moor Trust this week. We went pond dipping, mini beast hunting and even managed to find The Gruffalo in the woods!

Group photo on the paddockWe found all of the clues hidden in the woods… and finally The Gruffalo!Mini beast huntingSorting our mini beastsReady for pond dippingPond dipping in action!Thank you to The Box Moor Trust and to all of our staff and parent helpers!

This week we have been learning all about Autumn. We have had the opportunity to complete lots of Autumn activities during CIP. We have done some leaf threading, conker counting, tree printing, conker rolling and transient art . We also went on an Autumn walk around the school grounds collecting a range of different coloured natural items.

This week we have been reading the story ‘Leaf Man’. After hearing the story we used leaves and other natural materials we found as part of our homework to make our own Leaf Man and Leaf Girl pictures.

Today the school had a visit from James Arnott. James won a silver medal in the para commonwealth games for athletics. We had an assembly and learnt about James and his successes, then we had a workshop. During the workshop with year 6 we got to look at his medals, his running shoes and ask him some questions. James then got us to do a range of exercises to keep us fit.

Today we went to St George’s Church to do our Harvest Assembly. Our KS1 assembly was all about different vegetables. As a class we did vegetable printing crowns and learnt a song called ‘The Farmer Plants a Seed’. We all sung ‘Dingle, Dangle Scarecrow’, ‘Big, Red Combine Harvester’ and ‘The Vegetable Song’.